


twisted

by cthchewy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthchewy/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: Claude was chosen for crest experimentation.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 99





	twisted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chambermusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chambermusic/gifts).



“I can’t help but wonder… Wasn’t your hair a different color before?”

“Before?” Claude twirls his bone-white braid around a finger. “Yes, I suppose it was.” He shrugs and smiles at Dimitri, who must have somehow known him from _before_. But still Claude lies to him just as easily as he lies to anyone and everyone else, covering up the gaps in his memories with plenty of pretty words that say nothing. “I had darker hair once. Who knows why it changed? Maybe I breathed in too many fumes from my experiments.”

The professor comes by then, interrupting to gather them for battle preparations, and Claude is reminded that Abyss is not the place to expose such secrets. There are too many eyes and ears around every shadowed corner. Dimitri looks to him as if to say their conversation will resume later.

Claude follows the professor and doesn’t look back.

* * *

Claude dreams of _before_ , when there was once a cheerful young prince of a foreign land. Mocked and scorned for his mixed blood, yes, but free. Free to fly across the mountains, the plains, the deserts. He traversed them all and loved all the people there, and was so achingly naive as to forgive them for the hatred they showed him in return.

The dark-haired boy in the dream rushes into the queen’s chambers where she is receiving a guest from across the border. “Your uncle,” she introduces him. “He wants you to spend the summer with him. What do you think, Khalid? Do you want to meet your family on the other side?”

“Don’t go!” Claude yells. But the boy doesn’t hear him.

Stupid. _Stupid_. Khalid is so stupid. For all he prides himself on his intellect, he throws all caution to the wind at the faintest prospect of finding more people who will love him.

He accompanies his uncle over the mountains, and for a while things are okay. He learns the customs of this new land, meets his grandfather and his godmother… That summer they take him to the northwestern border, to his godmother’s house where he sits in on her boring meetings.

“This was… The border dispute meetings between House Daphnel and House Galatea…” Claude feels like he hasn’t thought about this event in a long time. “Why did they make me forget?”

They took all the love and joy from his world in order to mold him into something they could use. Something good must have happened at this time for them to have burned out the memory from his mind.

The scene plays on. Ah, here’s why it was turned to ash.

Dimitri, young and sweet. Hand in hand they run through the estate and out into the fields. They giggle and tumble down the rolling green hills, fashion swords from tree branches and crowns woven from grass. As King of Faerghus and Sovereign Duke of Leicester they defeat the forces of evil to return to the dinner table muddy and smiling.

That summer he finds the friend he’d always wanted. And when negotiations are settled between their countries, when it’s time to go home, Khalid-who-says-his-name-is-Claude gives Dimitri his most prized possession: his mother’s dagger. It had seen him through more assassination attempts than he could count. He says it’s just because he read a book on Faerghus traditions, but what he really means is to give away his heart.

Dimitri returns the gift with a dagger of his own.

They hug.

They cry.

Khalid dies alone and forgotten in a dungeon not long after.

* * *

Claude dreams of _during_ , of the nightmares that manifest whether he is awake or asleep. Whenever he hears the squeaking of rats or the rattling of chains. When he looks across his unblemished skin and thinks there should be a million scars, the same dread arises.

Uncle Godfrey makes him write to his mother, saying he wants to stay longer. He wants to attend school here and make more friends. _I have made so many friends here, mother. I am so happy._

Uncle Godfrey takes him underground, deep into the bowels of the earth, hands him off to masked strangers in dark robes and says, like countless others before him have said, “You’re weak. This will make you stronger.”

They cut him open. They bleed him dry. They fill his veins with poison.

(They fill his mind with poison.)

Underground, he can’t tell day from night.

(He can’t tell truth from lies.)

There is nothing but pain and hatred. The Church of Seiros is to blame for everything. Its existence is the cause of intolerance and Fodlan’s isolationism. It must be destroyed, and if all of Fodlan must burn beside it, so be it.

Claude’s dream will be realized. He will tear down borders.

* * *

There are tears on his face when he wakes. He pulls the dagger out from underneath his pillow.

It’s straight-edged, not curved like an Almyran blade would be. Not like… the Almyran dagger that Dimitri wears at his belt. How could he have forgotten what his mother’s dagger looked like?

He meets Dimitri for tea.

“I remember you,” he says, holding out the Faerghus-made blade that had been by his side for years. “Can’t believe I forgot.”

Dimitri’s whole face lights up with joy.

Claude smiles too, but his smile is a hollow thing, as empty as his heart.


End file.
